The
Seattle Student Voices Project represents a year-long civic education curriculum
designed to develop the knowledge and skills necessary for young people to become
active and effective citizens. Unlike many programs that are extracurricular and
tend to attract students who are already politically informed and civically motivated,
Seattle Student Voices works with the entire Seattle school system and is classroom-based.
The program has succeeded not simply with elite groups of students, but also with
young people living in deep poverty at underachieving schools, thus counteracting
the political inequality that has been developing in America. Moreover, by creating
a network of Seattle high school classes whose students are all simultaneously
considering local issues, the program creates a sense of community among its participants,
as they work together to give youth a greater voice in the public sphere.

Student Voices encourages active civic and political engagement by students
in their neighborhoods and schools, as well as with the press and political aspirants.
It is intended to increase students' knowledge and understanding of political
processes and institutions, as well as their ability to find information and make
use of it as evidence in argument and rhetoric. Ultimately, the objective is to
increase voting and improve the competence of individuals to participate in the
public sphere. Classroom visits and forums are held with candidates and partnerships
are forged with local media to produce positive coverage of young people and their
involvement with the politcal process.

The Student Voices Project was created in 2000 by the Annenberg
Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania. Over the past
four years, the project has been launched in 11 cities, including Seattle through
seed funding from The Annenberg
Foundation and The Pew
Charitable Trusts The Seattle Student Voices Project was first implemented
in Seattle High Schools in 2001-2002. In that year we conducted extensive evaluations
of the program goals. Similar to the results of program evaluations in other cities,
these findings speak to the robust effectiveness of the curriculum in achieving
its stated goals. As indicated in the analyses reported below, the most important
features of the curriculum were the direct participation aspects, including classroom
visits by candidates and campaign staff, click polls on issues posted on the project
web site, and various in-class discussions and deliberations on local issues and
the election. In 2004-2005, Student Voices developed a working relationship with
the Seattle
Channel to enable production, streaming, webcasting, and live televised distribution
of student forums with leaders and other student-produced programming. Click
here for a story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer about a student interview
program with the Seattle Police Chief.

For a full report based on the evaluation of the Student Voices project click
here.

The Seattle Student Voices Project is under the direction of Lance Bennett,
and housed at the Center for Communication and Civic Engagement at the University
of Washington, Lance Bennett, Director.